Tag: photography

SEASON: a letter to the future is a Bicycle Ride of Emotions

by macksamson, posted in Full Reviews, Gaming

If you’ve read my review of Spiritfarer, then you’d know that it takes a LOT for a videogame to make me cry. SEASON: a letter to the future is another one of those games; narrative-driven art pieces meant to change your life forever. However, SEASON is more than just walking forward and watching the assets do everything for you like in What Remains of Edith Finch. Read on to see why.

In SEASON: a letter to the future, the world is about to end. Apparently this happens all the time, but it doesn’t affect Estelle’s idyllic village. Estelle decides to go on a spiritual journey to record the world in its current state before it ends. Thus, she leaves her home to accomplish this task.

While I normally don’t care about story, such a thing is vital to make indie games like this enjoyable. However, before getting into the plot, I need to preface this by saying that I personally don’t dig the core themes in the game. It’s partially about media preservation, which is something I’ve grown to care very little about for an admittedly dumb reason. I’ve forgotten much of my childhood, especially a lot of the really bad bits (specifically school).

However, much of my disdain toward my own childhood didn’t come until adulthood. A lot of the YouTubers I watch were kids and teens back when I was growing up, and through them, I’ve learned of some really cursed things that I was alive for. As an example, my first session on SEASON was on the day I watched the episode of the Disc Only Podcast where they talked about some TV commercials from the 1990s and 2000s that would be considered horrifyingly unhealthy by today’s sensibilities. People tend to laugh hysterically when harkening back to these, but I honestly feel really uncomfortable. To think that an entire board room of adults in a marketing department thought that this stuff was A-okay… it just makes my skin crawl. I know it sounds dumb, but it’s through this that I really don’t care for media preservation. This kind of extends to actual personal memories. While I’d like to remember the best part of my childhood while I’m alive, why would I care if a complete stranger in a post-apocalyptic world received those memories after I’m gone?

Besides media preservation, SEASON has a much bigger, obvious theme. You could probably tell from the fact that these seasons have happened multiple times that the game is an allegory to change. It’s pretty apropos, since we’re four years into the most recent season: COVID-19. Anyone who was born before the pandemic should immediately be able to relate to SEASON. After all, it really did feel like the entire world transformed into a different planet overnight, and we’re still feeling those changes. I have not gotten over the trauma from 2020-2021 to this day. And now, another season in the form of the war in Ukraine is occuring before we’ve even had a chance to recover from THIS season!

In terms of the story therein, SEASON is what you’d expect from this ilk. Every line of dialogue and narration is as poignant and poetic, as it should be. I normally call this writing pretentious, but I actually didn’t mind it in SEASON. It allows for open interpretation, and you could have some interesting debates with a friend over the themes brought up in this game.

In SEASON, there are more-or-less five characters, including Estelle. Estelle is basically the narrator, and she takes notes from Edith Finch; every sentence is super esoteric and poetic. You never really know anything about her beyond three objects you choose to imbue into a pendant at the beginning of the game, and you don’t know what she’s thinking throughout her journey. While it seems like a lack of character development, in a game like this, it’s probably better that she keeps her thoughts to herself instead of a lot of times when writers appear to impose predefined takeaways into the audience.

The other four characters whom you interact with for the bulk of the story are the last people to evacuate from the main overworld, Tieng Valley. They’re what you’d expect from an indie game like this; relatable in every way possible. They are no doubt the weakest aspect of the game’s story, basically being templates for the audience to connect with from every angle; loss, moving to a new home, uncertainty, etc. The reason is because you basically show up to do their quests, and then… that’s it. You can speak to two of them and show them some of the stuff you’ve found, but it’s just cosmetic (Matyora is actually pretty great though).

Before we get to gameplay, I must praise SEASON‘s visuals. Despite being a world about to end the next day, it sure looks nice. It has a lovely cel-shaded look that makes every corner of the place look like a painting. It’s not the most novel style, but it beats out any of those photorealistic games nonetheless.

There are many games, like Breath of the Wild, where I go into them telling myself to enjoy every detail of the world in order to appreciate it. However, those games, especially Breath of the Wild, have so much to do and collect that I just never had the time to do that. However, in SEASON, those details essentially ARE the collectibles.

The gameplay is divided into two sections. First, you freely explore the world on your bike and collect anything you can find. Theoretically, you can take any photo and record any sound you want. However, there are specific sights and sounds that are actually considered “collectibles”, and you generally want those. Fortunately, these are pretty easy to find, as long as you are explorative. Visual landmarks stand out very well, while the game’s excellent sound design organically points you toward relevant audio keepsakes.

I’ll admit that recording stuff in SEASON felt really engaging, exciting, and rewarding, despite the latter not actually existing in gameplay. Each area of the game is thoughtfully handcrafted to be rife with metaphorical roses to stop and smell. You are meant to just drop everything you’re doing and just do nothing for minutes at a time. This is also a relatable aspect of the game’s story, especially in events where you can choose to record a scene or just listen. As someone who used to bring a big fancy camera to Disney, I wholeheartedly understand the pros and cons of actually choosing to preserve a moment in time versus just living that moment.

After you collect enough stuff, you can place them in that area’s page in Estelle’s journal. This part is really fun, and highly customizable. When you fill the Keepsakes gauge by finding the relevant capture points, then it is considered complete (although it doesn’t take much to get the bare minimum). It also unlocks stamps for that page as well, so you can really make it look nice.

However, the caveat comes in the form of the most justified use of bad inventory management in all of videogames. Estelle’s journal is not a College Ruled notebook; it’s a tiny little scrapbook. To keep with the game’s themes, the devs intentionally put an excessive amount of keepsakes throughout each area. As a result, you must constantly decide what stays and what goes. It’s actually pretty tough, since a number of keepsakes come together to frame the full extent of the game’s plot. The biggest battle is with the text that comes with each capture; you can’t shrink the font size.

This deters you from getting everything. Don’t worry completionists; you don’t have to in order to complete this game! Getting 100% is so easy that even someone like me was able to do it just by naturally exploring around. There aren’t even achievements related to filling the scrapbook whatsoever. 

If there is any big flaw I find with SEASON, it’s the same flaw I have with pretty much every philosophical narrative like this: us. One of the things I really resent is that we—in a pop culture sense—are aware of so much about good, evil, life, death, capitalism, the corruption of the media, climate change, yet… as is pointed out in the Tomorrowland movie, no one bothers to fix any of it. We just consume the latest thing, maybe write a pretentious review of it to make us look smart (I actually went out of my way to read reviews of things game to confirm that they were pretentious, and boy howdy were they), and then move on; I at least know I’m not going to be “transformed” by my experience. I just couldn’t let that feeling go during my playthrough of SEASON. In a sense, it could be interpreted as an allegory to the rapidly shifting “seasons” of pop culture, where the new constantly eats the old alive. SEASON, a game about remembering and forgetting stuff, will probably be forgotten, perhaps this year. However, not to toot my own horn, I will make sure as hell I do not forget the unique experience that is this game.

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Final Verdict: 9.5/10

SEASON: a letter to the future didn’t make me cry, but it is still a fabulous game that has helped me appreciate the unique and important role that this type of game plays in the community. Other than some frame drops in specific spots, it is an extremely well-crafted little story rife with universal messages. The price of admission (24.99 USD on Steam, and 29.99 USD on PlayStation) might seem steep, but if you play it the way it was intended, that price is well worth it. Besides, you probably paid 59.99 USD for Metroid Dread which isn’t even ten hours long. This one really is a no-brainer.

TOEM: The Actual Cutest Game of 2021

by macksamson, posted in Full Reviews, Gaming

I’ve had to rearrange my lifestyle in order to make room for more videogames, and also, to be in a better financial position. As I’ve stated, numerous times, light novels and manga (with the exception of Viz) have no subscription service. I’ve spent hundreds of dollars on those things, and that’s with prices almost halved by getting digital versions. By filtering out the stuff I can live without, as hard as that is sometimes, I can spare the cash on little games like TOEM on Steam.

In TOEM, you are a little bird cartoon fellow who wants to take a picture of the titular TOEM, whatever that is. He sets off on a journey to find it, and that’s literally it for the plot. 

The story is simple and pure; perfect Escapism. The writing is pretty grounded for the most part, but there’s still enough humor for it to be charming without coming off as try-hard. 

What drives TOEM home is the presentation. The grayscale style gives it a cozy feel, and the areas are very ambient, provided you don’t pay any mind to the empty void that surrounds you outside the boundaries of the game world. The soundtrack is beautifully relaxing and atmospheric. Plus, a really nice detail is that the main character is actually listening to it through headphones, and you can freely manipulate what music is playing in the pause menu.

The gameplay of TOEM is very simple. You use your camera to take pictures. The game makes it clear when it’s acknowledging a subject of the photo by showing brackets around it. Of course, there are many different things you need photos of. The biggest thing is the Compendium, which is basically an encyclopedia of different animals. Anything for the Compendium is given a snail symbol, which also has a check mark to indicate that you got it already. Every area also has a landmark that can have a picture taken, so get snapping!

To advance through the game, you must collect stamps in each area. To do this, you solve light puzzles by either finding stuff or presenting a certain photo. It’s pretty simple to figure out, but the annoying thing is that some tasks need stuff from all four areas. There are some surprisingly clever puzzles, but if you’ve played Baba Is You, then there isn’t much to worry about.

Getting full completion can be a bit tricky, but don’t get too hung up on getting it before the credits roll; in fact, you can’t, since you need to bring a photo from the endgame area to an older area for an achievement. The hardest one is probably the Cosplayer Achievement, which requires you to wear every clothing item. There’s no real way to track if you have all the clothing items in an area, plus some are in gift boxes, while others are earned from NPCs. You also have to take some photos of specific NPCs, who are indicated by shojou-style sparkles. If you did it, the photo will pop up with a glittering frame and artwork that looks nothing like the picture you took.

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Final Verdict: 8.5/10

TOEM is a short, sweet little game that you can play when you don’t feel in the mood to play the latest iteration of The Dark Souls of Dark Souls. I recommend it to pretty much anyone.

New Pokémon Snap: The Dark Souls of Casual Gaming (Either that or I just suck at it)

by macksamson, posted in Full Reviews, Gaming

I was a kid when the N64 came out. That puts my parents in their early twenties when the home videogame revolution occurred. Unfortunately, they were the only people who didn’t buy into it, which would cause me to miss those classic console generations and become a Gamecube kid. And while that can definitely be considered a badge of honor, it does pain me to say that I did miss a lot of great N64 games… such as Pokémon Snap. I watched several playthroughs of it on YouTube, and it looked super fun (albeit a bit on the short side). I wouldn’t get to experience that BS grading system that had nothing to do with actual rules of composition or being told that “I was close” until New Pokémon Snap came out on Nintendo Switch. I paid good money for this thing. Let’s hope it’s at least more than three hours long.

In New Pokémon Snap, you are transferred to the pun-tastic facility known as the Laboratory of Ecology and Nature Sciences (i.e. L.E.N.S.) to study Pokémon. Under the guide of Professor Mirror (not named after a tree for once), you take pictures of the critters for science. Oh, and some of them are shiny I guess.

People hated Gen 8 for how it looked (among other things), but New Pokémon Snap ends up being a big step above… Okay, that isn’t saying much. The characters look kind of plastic, but the game still has that pleasant, cartoony feel of the Pokémon world in general. The night time segments are where it excels in terms of visuals; gotta love stylized particle effects!

This is both a photography game, and a Pokémon game that isn’t Gen 5, so it goes without saying that there really isn’t a plot. The whole thing is following the old journal of some guy named Vince to discover the Illumina phenomenon. This glow makes Pokémon shiny, but sadly, it’s not the shiny that series veterans think of. In any case, that’s literally the whole story.

The characters are also as lacking as you can expect. This game is meant to be very serene and cut off from the criminal organizations, questionable ethics, min-maxxing, and awful law enforcement of the main games, so no one can be over-the-top. And as a result, they are as flat as anyone who isn’t Gladion, and also lack the great character design that Pokémon people tend to have. The only one who stands out is Todd, and that’s only under the assumption that he’s the original game’s protagonist. 

In terms of gameplay, New Pokémon Snap will feel very familiar to experienced players of the original. You move along on an automated path and take photos. You also have the help of returning tools such as the apples, and a Poké Flute equivalent that sounds way more annoying this time around.

Of course, it wouldn’t be a long-overdue sequel without some (i.e. a lot of) new features. First off, you can scan stuff now. This helps you find things as well as elicit reactions from nearby Pokémon. Pester Balls are replaced with Illumina Orbs. This can put Pokémon into an Illumina state, allowing for new behaviors. Also, hitting special flowers will trigger a widespread Illumina effect that often results in something ideal for your endeavors. The catch is that each region has its own variant, and you’ll have to earn them as you progress.

There’s also the research level. Courses, most of which are divided into day and night variants, have their own XP bars. Fill it up by discovering varied Pokémon behavior (and getting good scores), and upon levelling it up, the Pokémon on that course will change, allowing for even more variety. “It’s the gift that keeps on giving the whole year,” said Randy Quaid. Movie references aside, this mechanic really helps bring areas to life in a way that wasn’t possible in the original. 

The big thing that gives New Pokémon Snap its replay value is the way completing the Photodex works. Each photo of a Pokémon has a ranking system that ranges from bronze to platinum. As expected of a game where a machine judges art… yeah, good luck. However, there’s more than just getting a good photo of a Pokémon. As I said earlier with research level, Pokémon exhibit different behaviors. In fact, each Pokémon has FOUR states that it can be photographed in, each of which has its own ranking system. The completionist run requires every photograph of every Pokémon in every state with a platinum rating. Like I said, good luck.

Since machines aren’t sentient enough to have an eye for art, photo evaluation is the same “get the Pokémon in the center of the frame” BS as it always was. If you’re used to the ever-picky Professor Oak, then it’ll feel like second nature. However, Mirror doesn’t straight-up shit on you like Oak does. Whether or not that’s a disappointment is your prerogative. In any case, it’s also about as buggy as it was before; for every shot that should be awful, you get platinum, and a bronze for every shot that appears to more-than-adequately meet the game’s parameters (okay, to be honest, it’s not like that ALL the time but it’s noticeable).

When it comes to finding the four poses,  they’re mostly fun to figure out. These states can be triggered through your various tools, or by just having good reflexes. The problem with this system is the fact that you can only submit one photo of a Pokémon at a time. This sucks, since it’s more than likely you’ll have photos of Pokémon in more than one pose in a single run. This issue is most evident when in the special Illumina Pokémon stages. These are like Rainbow Cloud from the original; just you and a glowing Pokémon that you gotta go to town on. Although more Pokémon show up when replaying these stages, the bulk of their time is taken by the Illumina Pokémon. As such, it’s more than possible to get two, three, or possibly all four poses in a single run (and they’re generally not easy shots to get either). But because you can only do one at a time at the end… yeah. I can just imagine Professor Mirror saying, “Wow, you captured this one Pokémon in a wide variety of behaviors all at once!” as he heartlessly shreds all but one of those photos you poured your blood, sweat, and tears into. And to be logic police for a second, this system is not at all efficient to doing ecology research. 

At the very least, you won’t be thrown in like cold turkey when it comes to figuring out the different poses of Pokémon; characters often provide photo requests that clue you in on what to do. However, a lot of these requests SUCK, and can make the game a hellscape if you’re going for completion. They range from pretty intuitive to Famicom-levels of obtuse, and at the time of posting this, I sure as hell didn’t get them all! And even if you know what to do, execution ends up being the hard part. While you can retry a stage anytime, there are actually slight variations within a given stage that are completely random, even if you didn’t increase the Research Level (looking at you, Elsewhere Forest). As a result, many of your retries can end up being just for the opportunity to take that photo (on top of having to set everything up for said photo). Oh, and if you end up preemptively taking a photo for a request before it comes up, then you’ll have to take it again, and waste the chance to submit a new pose from that run. And if you DO complete the request, you gotta manually turn it in!

One issue I will acknowledge that puts this game beneath the original is how progression is done. With exactly one exception at the butt end of the game, it’s all tied to raising the research level, as opposed to being observant and solving a puzzle in a given stage with intuition and timing. You don’t have to do any of the BS to raise it up to adequate levels, but it nonetheless doesn’t feel as accomplishing.

Beyond that, this game is just plain brutal at times. While it’s arguable whether or not any challenge in New Pokémon Snap is as hard as getting the 10k Mew shot in the original, a lot of this stuff really piles up, and the cumulative difficulty surpasses that of the Mew fight. Oftentimes, you’ll have to make ridiculously precise throws, sometimes at moving targets from within your also-moving vehicle, in very short windows of time. There are also a number of occasions where you have to kite Pokémon with apples for obnoxiously long periods of time. The problem with this last example is that Pokémon aren’t as responsive to apples as before, making it a real pain to maintain their attention. And if you mess up once, they go back to their starting point.

Let’s stop talking about the problems with the game and discuss some nice positives. One big help is that it gives you a visual indication of what is considered the subject of your next shot. Plus, you can take pictures while not zoomed in, as well as throw items while zoomed in. Most notably, photos are put into individual folders during evaluation, making it a lot less messy when choosing what to show to Mirror.

And need I mention the phenomenal photo customization? Every photo registered in the Photodex—as well as ones saved in your album—can be edited in some way. You can give them funny captions that are a lot better than the in-game ones, for starters. There is also the ability to re-snap a photo taken with the ability to modify angle and color balance settings (although this is only available at the end of a given run). The fun part is plopping stickers and effects onto your photos to make them hilarious. You get more and more stickers as you accomplish stuff, and it’s actually worth trying to knock out requests since they have a lot of the better stickers.

Before getting to the final evaluation, I should point out that New Pokémon Snap does have a bit of a post-game. You unlock the challenge score system from the original’s post-game (assuming you even care about it), as well as the Burst Mode setting for your camera that allows you to capture photos at rapid speed. Most notably, you unlock a beautiful new stage… that would’ve been spoiled to you if you happened to look at the Nintendo eShop pics for this game. It also spawns some Legendary Pokémon in earlier stages, if you want even more headaches. 

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Final Verdict: 8.95/10

It has more depth, better replay value, a great photo customization system, and a wider variety of Pokémon. Yet… for some completely arbitrary reason, it completely lacks the heart, personality, charm, and [insert other esoteric thing here] that the N64 Pokémon Snap had. …Look, I’m kidding, okay?! I think New Pokémon Snap was well worth the wait, and has more than enough positive qualities to outclass its predecessor. Just… for the love of Arceus… attempt to 100% it at your own risk!